Working from and with countries spanning Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Oceania, and Indigenous Nations, the contributors of this collection reflect on the social roles of metal music and stress how it faces oppressive experiences and aims to build a better world.

Defiant Sounds: Heavy Metal Music in the Global South brings together authors working from and/or with the Global South to reflect on the roles of metal music throughout their respective regions. The essays position metal music at the epicenter of region-specific experiences of oppression marked by colonialism, ethnic extermination, political persecution, and war. More importantly, the authors stress how metal music is used throughout the Global South to face these oppressive experiences, foster hope, and promote an agenda that seeks to build a better world.

Contents

Introduction: Of “Metal” and Metal: A Global South Approach to Metal Studies

Daniel Nevárez Araújo, Nelson Varas-Díaz, Jeremy Wallach, and Esther Clinton

Section 1: Conceptualizing the Distorted South

Chapter 1. Metal Music in the Distorted South: A Call for Defiance and Reflection

Nelson Varas-Díaz, Daniel Nevárez Araújo, Jeremy Wallach, and Esther Clinton

Section 2: Hope

Chapter 2. An Exegesis of Excess: Reverberations and Connotations of Feminisms Cartographed via Metal Music in the Global South

Susana González-Martínez

Chapter 3. Reclaiming Aotearoa: Stories of Experimentation, Education, and Reflection in Aotearoa Indigenous Metal Music

Didier Goossens

Chapter 4. “A Whole New Type of Isolation”: Resilience and Hope in the Navajo Nation Metal Scene during the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020–2021

Anthony J. Thibodeau and Sage Bond

Section 3: Social Change

Chapter 5. “We Play Heavy Metal because Our Lives Are Heavy Metal”: A Generation of Metal in the Middle East and North Africa

Mark LeVine

Chapter 6. Youth Activism and Decolonial Metal: Voice of Baceprot and Alien Weaponry as Case Studies

Paula Rowe

Chapter 7. Coloniality and Gender in the Argentinian Metal Scene: A Study Through Four Cases

Manuela Belén Calvo

Section 4: Dialogues

Chapter 8. An Interview on Contar/Cantar Memórias da Resistência

Susane Hécate (Miasthenia) and Daniel Nevárez Araújo

Chapter 9. Misusing Things in Metal Music: A Dialogue

Manuel Gagneux (Zeal & Ardor) and Daniel Nevárez Araújo

Chapter 10. The Alternative Side of the Frame: A Dialogue on Southern Inspirations

Kobi Farhi (Orphaned Land) and Nelson Varas-Díaz

Chapter 11. A Dialogue on Metal Festivals and Social Justice

Tshomarelo “Vulture” Mosaka (Overthrust) and Edward Banchs

Section 5: Diaspora

Chapter 12. The Ultra-Violence: Death Angel and Asian American Presence/Absence in Heavy Metal

Kevin Fellezs

Chapter 13. “Somewhere They Belong”: Metal, Ethnicity, and Scenic Solidarities in Malaysia’s Underground Scenes (1990s to 2000s)

Azmyl Yusof and Adil Johan

Section 6. Transgression

Chapter 14. Ancient, Evil, and African: Heavy Metal and Conflict in East Africa

Edward Banchs

Chapter 15. The Influence of Different Satanic Panics on the Transgressive Practices of Metal Music in Egypt, Iran, and Syria

Pasqualina Eckerström

Section 7: Resistance and Community

Chapter 16. Decolonizing the Mind’s Eye: Images of Resistance in Caribbean Metal Music

Nelson Varas-Díaz and Daniel Nevárez Araújo

Chapter 17. Nongkrong, Value of Community, and Everyday Resistance in the Indonesian Metal Scene

Oki Rahadianto Sutopo and Agustinus Aryo Lukisworo

Chapter 18. Satan Wasn’t There: The Perseverance of the Moroccan Metal Scene

Amine Hamma and Brian Trott

Epilogue: Metal Unbound

Esther Clinton, Jeremy Wallach, Nelson Varas-Díaz, and Daniel Nevárez Araújo

About the Contributors